Tuesday, 24 March 2015

Review Harvey

The pastel coloured, chubby-cheeked winged cherubs of the rococo Theatre
Royal ceiling, floating in their nappies around the rose chandelier, seemed
to have an earth-bound twin as TLT and motorised companion watched Mary Chase’s American
1944 play "Harvey" from up in the gods.

A chubby-cheeked
cherubic James Dreyfus as amiable alcoholic but financially well-endowed Elwood
P Dowd ambled on and it also struck us “Harvey”
has all the elements of an eighteenth century sentimental comedy of manners.

Such plays often have the threat of the “family” (usually
males) having the (usually female) beneficiary of family money detained. So
bedlam may lurk beneath the shenanigans
of wooing before eventual final act resolution.

Except that eighteenth century plays such as She Stoops to Conquer or The Rivals don’t often, if ever, include a six-foot-plus, invisible, “pooka”
rabbit, the eponymous Harvey, with or without knee breeches and tricorne hat.

And Elwood remains resolutely set on the bachelor life, while
still reading out loud Jane Austen’s famous Pride and Prejudice dictum,“... a single man in possession of a good fortune
must be in want of a wife.”

Yet this
Janus-faced play (and later movie), as has been noted, could equally well look forward towards Joe Orton’s high-octane 1960s’ carry-on What The Butler Saw.

Elwood, to the shame of sibling Veta (Maureen Lipman) and
niece Myrtle Mae (Ingrid Oliver), both eager to fit in with the town’s
social elite (embodied in a brief but memorable performance by Amanda Boxer),
not only fritters his life away in local bars but claims an invisible lanky
bunny as his drinking companion.

Veta and Myrtle Mae therefore seize the chance to take control
of family finances aided by family attorney and town judge Omar Gaffney
(Desmond Barrit).The dream of selling
up and moving away, leaving their relative, they fondly imagine, in the
considerate hands of the psychiatrists at the local private asylum, seems
within their grasp.

But the best laid plans go awry. Callow young psychiatrist Lyman Sanderson (Jack
Hawkins) is let loose by negligent hands-off
boss Dr Chumley (David Bamber) on town citizens. Sanderson wrongly assumes the family seeks relief
from its elderly female relative, Veta rather than the hallucinatingElwood.

Veta does eventually
escape permanent incarceration. But only when lax Chumley, married to a blonde
bombshell (Felicity Dean), while preferring his women prone and silent, realises the possible
consequences of illegal detention. The rest of the action revolves around the psychiatrists
seeking to contain liability supported by bewildered Duane, the heavy of an asylum orderly
(a galumphingly charming Youssef Kerkour) and compliant young nurse Ruth Kelly (Sally Scott).

All of which, set down so plainly, makes the play seem a
much darker comedy than it plays in Lindsay Posner’s gently sedate production, staged with an affectively detailed music box turntable of a set designed by Peter
McKintosh.

James Dreyfus, after a self conscious start, settles into his
role and eventually convinces as the tippler allowed free licence in the town. Linal
Haft gives a pleasing cameo as cab driver who acts as the 20th
century equivalent of the deus ex machina. Maureen Lipman and David Bamber as
Elwood’s sister and chief psychiatrist respectively give polished performances
but, like the whole production, are hampered by pedestrian pacing.

Still, on the day we attended the trials and tribulations of
Elwood P Dowd and his sister Veta, the family of a woman activist murdered in Afghanistan reportedly were told to claim by police she was mentally ill to
avoid reprisals against them.

It seems stories like Harvey still have the barbs to reflect
current events, but the dark undercurrents are muffled in the stately pacing of
this production. So don’t sell your
grandmother to buy a ticket, but there’s
enough there to keep an audience watching, if not entirely engrossed, and wondering
what a sharper production would reveal. An amber light.

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About Me

Mere colour-coded opinions here & on Twitter @TLTreviews
Follow Theatregoer's Highway Code - red for 'stay at home'; amber for 'may cater for some tastes'; and green for 'go! go! go!'; Usually all reviews are posted the day after our theatre trip! Alongside TLT and her little hatchback, aka Alice Josephs, journalists Francis Beckett http://www.francisbeckett.co.uk/, Peter Barker and Tim Gopsill also take the steering wheel at times as esteemed guest reviewers! If you feel the need to make me take my eyes off the blog while I'm driving, email me on trafficlightblog@yahoo.co.uk ...